What would it mean to create an alternative economy in the Hunter Valley that did not sacrifice the land, the water, and the climate?

The Hunter Valley’s history and its contested future are written in piles of coal buried since the swampy Permian period, when giant conifers fell and were pressed for hundreds of millions of years in layers of hard dark pages. Coal drew the English to Newcastle, but even before the English came, coal was part of the lives and stories of the Awabakal people of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie. Now that history is being scraped away, loaded onto ships, and sent across the world for burning. The black piles of coal on Newcastle’s Kooragang Island, waiting for ships, presage a dark future to come.

Coal remains a significant contributor to the economies of the world, and backbone of many local communities, so simply closing coal mines can trigger a series of unintended social consequences. We speak to Claudia Strambo of the Stockholm Environment Institute about the difficulties in coal mine closure, and how governments and companies can affect those who rely on these operations.

Energy Storage News' Andy Colthorpe and Liam Stoker explore the way grids are changing in the Middle East to accommodate clean energy, the role virtual power plants are playing in Italy, and the contrasting role coal is playing in Germany and bush fire-stricken Australia.

What’s the future for coalminers? Thanks to some deep dive work from Beyond Zero Emissions and collaboration with unions, the prospects are quite positive. Check out the Western Australian coal mining town of Collie, for instance.

Murray Energy, one of the biggest private U.S. coal companies, has become the fifth coal company to file for bankruptcy in 2019. Union leaders and many elected officials worry that in addition to the 7,000 miners on Murray’s payroll, this step could threaten the solvency of the United Mine Workers of America pension fund, which supports over 100,000 retired miners and fully vested workers.

New funding supports workers and communities in Alberta

September 3, 2019 – Edmonton, Alberta – Western Economic Diversification Canada

Vulture capitalists are sucking value from a dying industry. 

Wyoming is facing a potential crisis. Coal mines have shut down, hundreds of people are out of work, unemployment offices are overwhelmed, and there appears to be worse to come.

By David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com  Jul 9, 2019, 8:30am EDT

Chile announced Tuesday it would close eight coal-fired power stations over the next five years as part of a plan to switch entirely to renewable energy by 2040.

The closures, announced by Chile's conservative President Sebastian Pinera, account for 20 percent of the country's energy capacity, or 23,000 megawatts.

The New Zealand Government has established a Just Transitions Unit to help share and coordinate the work of transitioning New Zealand to a low emissions economy. Read more

The coal companies told us they're going to be there forever - but we all know the end of coal is coming. We have to get in front of it!